Ups and Downs: An activity to practice intonation patterns

If you are looking for ideas to put intonation patterns into use, I hope you’ve already looked at my UFO Sighting activity. It gives a context for rising and falling intonation with questions and simple sentences. Today I’d like to offer a similar activity, but extend practice to include a pattern commonly used with longer setnences. Ups and Downs allows you to review rising and falling intonation and model how speakers sometimes rise slightly in the first clause of a complex or compound sentence and then fall in the second clause to show finality.

NOTE: If you have the time and inclination, you can certain create your own set of statement cards to reflect a topic that would better suit your students’ interests. Statements could center around career goals, vacation plans, music preferences and talents, or a number of other areas.